ATLANTIS

Atlantis is a legendary island in the Atlantic, west of Gibraltar, that sunk beneath the sea during a violent eruption of earthquakes and floods some 9,000 years before Plato wrote about it in his Timaeus and Critias. In a discussion of utopian societies, Plato claims that Egyptian priests told Solon about Atlantis. Plato was not describing a real place any more than his allegory of the cave describes a real cave. The purpose of Atlantis is to express a moral message in a discussion of ideal societies, a favorite theme of his. The fact that nobody in Greece for 9,000 years had mentioned a battle between Athens and Atlantis should serve as a clue that Plato was not talking about a real place or battle. Nevertheless, Plato is often cited as the primary source for the reality of a place on earth called Atlantis.

It is highly significant that Herodotus, the so-called ‘father of history’, said nothing at all about any war between Athens and Atlantis. Writing almost a century before Plato, Herodotus was widely travelled (he had visited Egypt where the Atlantis story supposedly came from) and very knowledgeable about military history.

Socrates was one of the greatest intellectuals of his day, and yet when Critias introduced the story of Athens’ heroic victory over Atlantis, he responded by saying: “Tell me though, what was that ancient deed our city performed...? I’ve never heard of it.” If the Athenian victory had been magnificent in a historical sense, or even in an orthodox mythical sense (as in their involvement in the Trojan War or the earlier epic battle ‘the Seven against Thebes’), then Socrates certainly would have heard of it.

Different seekers have located the mythical place in the mid-Atlantic, Cuba, the Andes, and dozens of other places. Some have equated ancient Thera with Atlantis. Thera is a volcanic Greek island in the Aegean Sea that was devastated by a volcanic eruption in 1625 BCE. Until then it had been associated with the Minoan civilization on Crete.

The reaction of Atlantis-hunters to the non-discovery of Atlantis on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean has been to suggest that the story was garbled at some point or else expressed in poetic terms, thus causing Plato to cite an incorrect geography. This assumption means that the lost island can be moved from the Atlantic to any other alternative location, preferably one that has not been mapped by sonar! The problem with this approach is that, once one presumes Plato to have made one mistake (with the location), it becomes tempting to take a little licence with the text, and then some more licence still, and thus the situation arises where Atlantis-hunters produce ‘solutions’ that owe little to what Plato actually said.

Many critics of Atlantis insist that, besides Plato's dialogues, Timaeus and Critias, there is no other independent evidence provided by ancient authorities on the matter. Nothing could be farther away from the truth. Indeed, the ancient myths and traditions of most nations center on the legend of the Flood and on the destruction of Paradise, the original focus of Civilization that is no other than Atlantis.

 References to Atlantis in worldwide traditions

 As we said above, the Greeks copied their legends on Atlas and Atlantis from the Hindu ones on Atalas (Shiva) and on Atala, the sunken paradise of the Hindus. As in the Greek traditions, Atalas - whose name is Sanskrit and means "Pillar" - was deemed to be the "Pillar of the World", just as was Atlas in Greece. Atala was, like Atlantis, a sunken continent destroyed by a fiery cataclysm, and which lay in the Outer Ocean. Since the Greek legend is of Hindu origin and was simply transferred to their western region when the Greeks moved to their present whereabouts, it is idle to quest for Atlantis in the ocean nowadays called Atlantic. Instead, we must seek Atlantis in the ocean which the Hindus called "Ocean of the Atlanteans" or "Western Ocean", and which is none other than the Indian Ocean.

The Hindus have many traditions on a sunken continent that was the paradisial region where mankind and civilization first originated. One such was Tripura, "the Triple City". When we recall the fact that Atlantis was, like Tripura, a triple city with metallic walls and golden palaces, we cannot but conclude that the two traditions, if indeed based on actual fact, refer to the one and same thing. Moreover, as happened with Atlantis, the inhabitants of Tripura were originally extremely pious. But, with the passage of time, they also became evil and perverse, and were destroyed by Shiva. It is because of this feat that Shiva got the epithet of Tripurantaka ("Destroyer of Tripura"). As with Lanka (see below) and Atlantis, Tripura was built upon a mountain so lofty, that it was said to reside in the skies.

Another Hindu legend on a sunken empire that was the archetype of Atlantis concerns Lanka, and is told in detail in the Ramayana. The saga of the destruction of Lanka by Rama and Hanumant was the original on which Homer's Illiad was based. Just as the Ramayana tells the story of Lanka and the rescue of Shita, the spouse of Rama kidnapped by the evil Ravana, the Illiad recounts the destruction of Troy and the rescue of the fickle Helen, kidnapped by Paris. Troy, with its bronzy walls and golden palaces was just one of the many allegories of Atlantis. In contrast to the small village discovered by Schliemann in Turkey, the true Troy lay in the Outer Ocean. It was a magnificent capital and sank into the ocean after its destruction and incending in the great war with the "Greeks" of an earlier age. The parallels between Troy and Atlantis are too many to be discarded. And those between Plato's Atlantis and the Lanka of the Hindus show, in an unequivocal manner, that it is in the Far Orient and the underseas, and not in the Mediterranean region, that we must quest for the real Troy and the real Atlantis.

The Mahabharata, the other great Hindu classical saga that completes the Ramayana, tells of the mighty empire of Krishna and its destruction in the great war between the Lunars and the Solars (the Kurus and Pandus). This great war is, like the one of Lanka or that of Troy, the true archetype on which Plato based his history of Atlantis. Hastinapura, the capital of the Pandu empire, was the "City of the Pillars" (Hastina-pura) or, yet, the "City of the Nagas". These two are epithets associated with the Atlanteans and with the Pillar of Heaven in the Far East. The Mahabharata also tells of Dvaraka, the capital of Krishna, located in an island in the middle of the seas. Krishna's capital, Dvaraka, sunk underseas when the divine hero died in the great war, more or less in the way Atlantis went under, according to Plato.

In the Mabinogion, the Celtic book of origins, it is stated that the Celts originally came from "the island of Defrobani, the Country of Summer and land of the Cimmerians". Now, "Defrobani" can only be the island of Taprobane, as many experts concluded. Taprobane - that the ancient authors equated with the site of the Terrestrial Paradise and of the fall of Adam - is no other than the island of Sumatra which is indeed the site of Atlantis.

Accordingly, the Egyptians spoke of the mysterious Hanebut (or Haunebut), a people who lived beyond the Indian Ocean, in the region of Amenti (or Punt). The name of the Hanebut means "People of the Haze" or "People of the Pillar [of Atlas]" (Hau-nabha in Sanskrit and Dravida, the t ending merely marking out the feminine gender in Egyptian). This enigmatic people was said to live under a dark haze which the light of the sun never penetrated, just as in Cimmeria. As for Punt and Amenti, the Egyptians affirmed that the region of the Hanebut was real and could indeed be visited, as they often did. As we show elsewhere, the elusive Hanebut were indeed the same as the people of Punt who, as the Gerzeans, invaded and conquered Upper Egypt in pre-Dynastic times, and who were later expelled when Egypt was unified by King Menes, "the Greek". Not impossibly, this great prehistoric war was the same one mentioned by Plato as the "War of Atlantis", when the Egyptians and the "Greeks" united to expell the Atlantean invader.

Shveta-dvipa, the Hindu Paradise, was placed in the Ocean of Milk (Dugdha Samudra), just as in the Amerindian myths. This "milk" or "cream" is actually the scum of pumice stone which covered the seas of Atlantis, rendering then "inavigable", just as reported by Plato. The Hindu myth entitled The Churning of the Ocean of Milk allegorizes the sinking of Atlantis in the Flood. In this allegory Mt. Mandara (or Meru) replaces Mt. Atlas. The Turtle (Kurma, the second avatar of Vishnu) that dives to the bottom of the waters represents Atlantis sunken in the Ocean of Milk. Likewise, Vasuki (or Shesha, the King of the Nagas), the serpent that serves as the churning rope, represents Atlas in his serpentine avatar. In other words, the myth of The Churning of the Ocean of Milk is a Cosmogony, a poetic licence telling the destruction of Paradise (Atlantis) and the rebirth of the world from the fragments of the former one, destroyed in consequence of the war of the Gods and the Devils (Devas and Asuras).

Other Hindu legends tell of Agartha (or Shambhalla), the subterranean realm of the King of the World. According to this tradition, it is from Shambhalla that is to surge Kalkin, ("the White Knight") for the final battle of the end of times. Kalkin, the White Knight, is to lead his hosts, the Sons of Light, to victory against the Sons of Darkness. The myth of Shambhalla is the archetype from which were copied the similar ones of the Essenes and of the Christians. Again, as with the Celestial Jerusalem of St. John's Revelation, the myth of Kalkin prefigures the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Many experts have correlated the traditions of Agartha and Shambhalla with those of Atlantis and the Celestial Jerusalem. In fact, Atlantis too will resurge in the end of times (now?) in precisely the same manner prescribed for the Celestial Jerusalem of the Book of Revelation. Then, will the Golden Age be restored to the world, for Atlantis is truly the Paradise Lost we all have been expecting for so long.

Who Were the Atlanteans?

Firstly, it's important to point out that Atlantis was not the only continent from ancient times that sank beneath the waves. There was the huge continent of Lemuria which also incorporated other countries like Mu and Mar in the Pacific Ocean, and Lumania in the Indian Ocean. Remnants of the lost continents may still be seen as the peaks of their mountains make small islands in the middle of vast oceans - Easter Island is thought to be a remnant of Lemuria and still bears the great stone statues, though only their heads are showing above the ground.

Most all ancient civilizations believed in the Titans, the race of giant humans that inhabited Earth long ago. Different races knew them by different names. These 7 to 12 foot humanoids were thought to be legendary until the excavation of over a dozen skeletons 8 to 12 feet tall, around the world, shocked archaeologists. The Spanish Conquistadors left diaries of wild blond-haired, blue eyed 8 to 12 foot high men running around in the Andes during the conquest of the Incas.

They, along with other groups working on the planet, eventually developed the smaller human being by genetic manipulation, originally for use as workers.The 'Adamu' (or man) were originally created to work in various projects around the world. Some of these were mining, food production, construction, etc. By giving man the ability to reproduce on his own (the original sin), the population began to multiply quite rapidly. The Annunaki began to clamor for more of the workers. Human females were further altered so that conception was possible not once per year, but every 28 days. This can be found in Genesis, Chapter 3, Verse 16. The Annunaki soldiers eventually started to reproduce with the earth human females: "When the sons of the Elohim came unto the daughters of man, and they bore them children".